Kennet & Avon Canal - Lock 7

The stone walls of Lock 7 hold a vertical gap of over ten feet, making it one of the deepest locks on the Kennet and Avon Canal. It was built in the early nineteenth century to lift heavy barges up from the River Avon toward the higher ground of Bath. When the canal opened, John Rennie designed these chambers to handle a constant flow of coal and grain. The iron windlasses used to open the sluices today weigh the same as those from two hundred years ago.